Piranha Games have announced the following: “Make a MECH-sized marking in your calendars for Tuesday, October 16th. In just one week, we will be opening up the InnerSphere to all MechWarriors and their friends.” This signals the end of Mechwarrior Online‘s Founders program, where you could buy in for early for in-game currency and other bonuses, but since it’s F2P I expect to see a lot more activity kicking off in the coming weeks. As I mentioned previously, I’ve rathered enjoyed my time with it, although it seems like there’s a lot of content to come. I’ve posted some recent gameplay footage below.

Even the maps that are huge and open have plenty of cover to encourage sniping and flanking. Caustic Valley has mountains, and the trees on one side of the map (which you can’t see through using Thermal Imaging because the map is so hot) also provide visual cover which can make lining up shots difficult.

If the map is huge and open, it just means you have to be careful about over-committing. If you are out in the open when you get surprised by the enemy force, you’ll take a beating, especially if you’re in a slow ‘mech. However, there is no reason you have to wander out in the open in Caustic Valley. There’s always a ridge line to provide some cover.

And if you really don’t want to get surprised, that’s why you have light ‘mechs on your team. Hopefully they’re scouting, and they can run away if they make contact.

He’s right. MWO is all about firepower, better mechs and better stuff. A textbook pay2win formula. I’ve played dozens of matches and there is no skill involved at all. Usually gangs of founders just steamroll everyone else and that’s that.

Misrepresenting the system much? Literally nothing in the shop that affects gameplay is available for MC only, and the C-bill prices are damn reasonable if you ask me. I made enough for my own mech in a day using a trial mech, and with the increase in pay that using an owned mech gives you, I made enough in half the next day to get a second mech. And that was with a healthy mix of wins and losses. I only bought a founder’s pack AFTER that, because I was so damn impressed.

Learn to use the mechlab and research effective builds. Refitting your mech is relatively inexpensive, unless you want a shiny XL engine (costs about as much as a new mech). And even that comes with disadvantages, like basically turning your mech into a glass cannon.

A shit build is a shit build, and it’s your own damn fault if you don’t take a serious look at what works and what doesn’t.

You are very bad at the game. Founders mechs pack a loadout identical to the prime configuration of that mech which you can buy with C-Bills. While pub matches mostly are about putting more damage into a single mech at a time and thus not very strategic, you could say the same about nearly any other team-based competitive game. Premade groups vs premade groups is where you start to see some strategy.

It’s true that the trial mech configurations are extremely bad, but you need about 7 games in each to be able to afford a mech you can configure yourself and the trial mechs do let you see which weight classes and weapons you like.

Hate to say it, but Amun is pretty much right. Notice the loadouts in that competitive match? No autocannons, no missiles, no machine guns, no large lasers, almost no mediums, and no PPCs. It’s just small lasers and gauss rifles for miles. Weapon balance needs some serious fixing.

Have you been keeping up with the game lately? I’ve seen plenty of people using ACs, especially since the patch the other day that buffed their ammo and fire rate. Not to mention, large lasers are getting plenty of effective use in the group I’ve been rolling with, as well as PPCs. This seems like more of a case of learning effective builds for each weapon type at this point. Gaussapults are still a problem, but as far as I can see, that’s about the only truly overpowered build right now.

mrmalodor, that’s some real BS you posted there. Won’t say that you went full retard only because random (aka “pub”) games tend to be a (war)faceroll of unorganised people runinng around shooting everything. However with some very light leadership things do change – you can always take command and set up targets and stuff, the current population of the game tend to follow. It’s probably because it’s still very limited in numbers, so it’s mostly real fans that are interested in the game etc who are in, maybe it’s because of the simple “pack wins” instinct, dunno.

Also, firepower is an illusive thing. I have been speccing people play and there’s tons of people with very heavy mechs loaded with guns that play like shit and are plain useless, whereas a skilled pilot of any mech, even a light one, can make a difference and win fights.

This is a game where a good scout beats a bad heavy any day.

Tip – Observe enemy, note weapon location, precision strike said location to disarm the enemy. Then it’s either move on or kill the target. Also – manouver, shoot at the back. One can’t simply stand still and mash the triggers just because he’s in some 100 tonnes machine.

Any news on European servers yet?
All that 5 minutes of Google turned up STILL boils down to “eventually”, not even “soon™” – but hopefully I’ve missed something.
Does nobody give a fuck about ping these days any more or do they not want filthy non-American money?

Lucky you (honestly). Years of competitive FPS playing has sensitized me to high ping (and low fps, but that’s another story) to such an extent that I usually notice it immediately, then proceed to hate it.
Even World of Tanks with its much slower gameplay feels unplayable to me once my ping spikes to a hundred or so (usually I have 30), and this looks much faster and thus more ping-reliant to me.

I’d probably have bought founder’s package a couple of months ago if there had at least been a definitive ETA on Euro servers. I guess now that it’s going open beta I can have a look at it, but not knowing if accounts are cross-region or if I’ll be able to transfer a non-founder account kind of shits on that a little.

I checked in game and I’m sitting around 100. Thinking about it there has been times when I’m sure I’m out of LoS but still manage to take damage. I suppose lack of sensitivity could explain as I rarely play competitive FPS games anymore. Also possibly becuase MWO just isn’t a twitch FPS.

I’ve been in the beta for a while now, and i gotta say the game is really damn good even as it is, it will only get better with the tons of stuff they still have to implement.

I hope they speed up a bit though, getting it to final before the end of the year. Doubt it though, it’ll probably go the way other F2P games do – perpetual beta, eventual final release when the game is already old. Still, there’s really no excuse not to try it out, considering it’s free, and it’s a lot of fun if you like this kinda games.

The point i like the most so far? – Mechs don’t die easy. Even little ones…
Big mechs can really take a load of beating unless they get surprise buttsex(hit very hard at the back, where armour is very weak). Medium mechs can hold their own almost as well as big ones, and light mechs are not THAT far behind either, even though they do rely more on speed tank (even players will understand). Point is, playing a different class of mech doesn’t really change your overall HP much, it changes your speed though (Light mechs go at about 2x the speed of the biggest mechs), the turn speed of your torso (thus aiming) and to some extent the firepower you can carry.

What that means is that combat can and does take a while to finish, which is awesome. This enables people to use some tactics ambushes and stuff, and makes battles more dynamic than they are in something like World of Tanks (sorry, it’s the closest thing to MWO for now). Not dieing in 1 shot means you can manouver, escape, hide, scout, snipe… It’s just much more fun than playing for 10 minutes only to get 1 shot in the end, then wait for the battle to end so you can re-use your tan… erm, mech. At least for me, that is.

P.S. No EU servers IS kinda crappy decision, gotta admit i am kinda surprised. Almost all other online games, free to play or not, come out with both EU and US (sometimes even Asia etc) servers right off the bat. Hope they fix this soon, playing with 200 ping does suck major ass.

Yeah, I really enjoy the viability of all the ‘mech classes. I especially like how they increased the value of scouting / light ‘mechs by making visual contact required to get a radar signal, and of course, you need a radar signal to bombard the enemy with LRMs. Light ‘mechs can do quite a bit of damage by out-manuvering assaults, they can cap bases, they can scout out the enemy force, and they can allow the fire support ‘mechs to bombard from afar. (Any ‘mech can provide radar / lock-on support, but lights do it better because of their manuverability.)

It really isn’t ready for general consumption imo, along with a mass of weapons and add-ons coming next week which are totally untested on how it will affect balance (double heat-sinks amongst the biggest game changers).

Although it’s a fun game to pick up now and then, I think it fails as a f2p/f2b game, as I’ve not once been tempted to actually ‘buy’ anything ‘yet’.

Collision detection / falling over, lag and weapon convergence aside the core gameplay is good, but “Open Beta”? Really? It just smells of them running out of money.

Its got 4 maps, 1 flawed game-mode, only just over half the mechs they’ve already announced (and at the current rate it’ll be 6 months until they catch up) and a hugely grindy mechanic that makes me feel dirty – it takes roughly 20 games to get even the cheapest ‘mech, and to get anywhere on the XP skill trees (which you dont get for trial mechs), means buying 3 variants of the same thing.

Pretty much everything in the game outside the basic gameplay is a prototype other than the abusive monetisation – realistically Open Beta should be about 6 months away, when they’ve actually got more than 10% of the advertised features done.

It’s pretty, or will be once they reduce the graininess. Combat ‘feels’ like I always imagined battletech to be. The game itself though is pretty obviously (to anyone not wearing thick fanboy glasses) still very young in development. I’ve been playing since August, and honestly the rate at which they accomplish things is very slow considering the list of things they intend to do. It feels like they have maybe one guy doing programming, and maybe another guy doing art. Their pace seems very slow and amateurish.

At the moment it’s just one giant deathmatch, with terrible matchmaking, repetitive maps, and since the latest patch it crashes and still suffers from what seems to be poor network coding. They’ve also somehow crippled a graphics engine that runs much smoother for most people in other games.

I think it has the potential to turn out to be a good game, if it lasts another six months. But pushing it into open beta now seems like asking for heaps of bad reviews and negative press. Because whether or not it makes sense, reviews is what happens when you go open beta. And this game ain’t ready by a mile.

I’m afraid not. It’s a real shame, too- the game feels great, and would make such an excellent solo experience with some purpose-made maps and an AI. I don’t think there’s going to be mod support, though.

It is extremely fun to play, especially with the vast large, more tactical, maps that distinguishes it from it’s cation mecha competitor. I think is that the commentators are far from exciting, but it was a good match. Also: this is the first footage, I believe, of the updated engine, so now graphics look more than a concept presentation, which is always good.